Agari
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Putrescine Toxicity
I have stumbled upon a substance called Putrescine,C4H12N2,which is a foul-smelling substance,yet was not toxic at first glance. However,after reading
about it on Wikipedia, it was stated that putrescine has a lethal dose of 463 mg/kg of body weight when ingested and 1 gram per kilogram when absorbed
dermally. My question is: How will putrescine kill me?Is it metabolised to toxic substances (Like methanol is metabolised to formaldehyde and formic
acid),is it neurotoxic,a blistering agent, or does it cause damage in the same manner as hydrofluoric acid?
[Edited on 30-10-2015 by Agari]
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Amos
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That's around the same LD50 as aspirin; do you really consider that toxic? Here's quite a large amount of information, but it's not nearly so exotic
as a blistering agent; we are talking about a substance naturally occurring in humans
http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@ter...
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228083797_Dietary_ex...
From a quick scan, I found that putrescine is a potentiator of other amines in the body, notably histamine, meaning it strengthens the effects of that
and other amines. It is also broken down in the liver to an extent, meaning it may be hepatotoxic. As for symptoms:
"Symptoms that can occur after excessive oral intake of biogenic amines include nausea, respiratory distress, hot flush, sweating,
heart palpitations, headache, bright red rash, burning sensations in the mouth and alterations in blood pressure"
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kecskesajt
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The smell will kill you first.Before it kill you there is a high chance that you will run out of the lab.
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Dr.Bob
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It acts as a weak cationic lipid, which is a membrane disruptor, not much different than eating Lysol or detergent. Much like
dialkylbenzylmethylammonium salts acts as detergents, polyamines can change the behavoirs of your cell's membrane, which can be bad for them. But it
take a lot, much like ethanol can alter your cells membrane, along with other receptors, which is large doses can be fatal. But the smell would
cause to to vomit yourself to death long before you could inject 46 grams of it.
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hissingnoise
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Yeah, it's hard to eat something if the smell makes you want to throw up?
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zed
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My guess is that its toxicity is based on the fact, that if you rub yourself down with it, possums will eat you while you are sleeping.
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Agari
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What is with all of the joke replies such as "The smell will kill you"?
Big shoutout to ""Dr.Bob" and Amos.
"That's around the same LD50 as aspirin; do you really consider that toxic? Here's quite a large amount of information, but it's not nearly so exotic
as a blistering agent; we are talking about a substance naturally occurring in humans
http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@ter...
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228083797_Dietary_ex...
From a quick scan, I found that putrescine is a potentiator of other amines in the body, notably histamine, meaning it strengthens the effects of that
and other amines. It is also broken down in the liver to an extent, meaning it may be hepatotoxic. As for symptoms:
"Symptoms that can occur after excessive oral intake of biogenic amines include nausea, respiratory distress, hot flush, sweating, heart palpitations,
headache, bright red rash, burning sensations in the mouth and alterations in blood pressure"
That does actually sound like it would be an effect of histamine response.
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BromicAcid
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I have worked with 1,4-diaminobutane (putrescine) in the past, I did not find out the trivial name of the compound until after I had worked with it a
few times. I did not find the smell any more unsettling than any of the diamines around it (of course cadaverine is only one carbon longer). Sure it
smells but I would hardly call it horrible.
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Pumukli
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"potentiator of other amines" seems to be a fairly good explanation on what it does.
I would say that based on the description of symptomes of poisoning putrescine is toxic mostly because it saturates the monoaminoxidases in the body.
While the enzymes are busy destroying the compound they "have no time" to do the same with the otherwise (much) more toxic endogenous (and food-based)
substances e.g. hystamine, adrenaline, noradrenaline, tyramine, etc.
These sympathomimetic amines build up in the body and cause the symptomes described.
In high doses it may have direct membrane-desintegrating properties as well.
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Agari
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So, it can be used as a lysis buffer should I get bored and do the classical banana DNA extraction experiment?
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Pumukli
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I don't know the classical banana experiment because we extracted DNA from E. coli bacteria. We used Na-laurylsulphate to disintegrate the cells if
memory serves well.
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Agari
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Quote: Originally posted by Pumukli  | | I don't know the classical banana experiment because we extracted DNA from E. coli bacteria. We used Na-laurylsulphate to disintegrate the cells if
memory serves well. |
Since a lot of amateurs stumble across DNA extraction yet don't have access to an adequate amount of bacteria or lytic agents,they would use
detergents and the such to cause lysis and extract the DNA from plants instead. A good example would be the video by recently-deceased SM member
MyFanwy(I had to mention him,it tends to pull some emotional strings around here).I only wanted to make putriscene because of its strong odor,not to
use as a lysis buffer,but the fact that it can disintegrate cellular membranes would suggest that it can be used as such.
[Edited on 3-11-2015 by Agari]
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